


Under (the) Covers

by HawthorneWhisperer



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fake Marriage, Fluff, Undercover as Married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 21:54:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8506864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HawthorneWhisperer/pseuds/HawthorneWhisperer
Summary: Clarke and Bellamy have done the married-undercover-FBI-agents thing before.  They know each other well enough to fool just about anyone, so it's probably the easiest part of this assignment.  In theory, it should be a piece of cake.Except for one tiny problem.  She might be in love with him.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swishywillow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swishywillow/gifts).



Arkadia looked like every other town in Silicon Valley.  Stylish, glass-walled homes lined the yellow-brown ravines and canyons with shiny, expensive electric cars parked on the driveways next to jewel-bright lawns.  Clarke rolled out of their king-sized bed and tugged the stretched out collar of her UVA Law School t-shirt back up off her shoulder.  “I have a briefing with Kane today,” she told Bellamy, who was doing his morning set of pushups.

“Can you ask—”

“I always ask how Octavia is,” Clarke cut him off.

Bellamy huffed a little between push ups.  “I was going to say, can you ask him to send me a few more of my notes on contracts?  I’m feeling like Glazer is starting to see through me, and I don’t have Reyes in my ear to help me fake it.”

Clarke padded towards their bathroom.  “Raven only helps like, once or twice a day.  I do the rest on my own,” she pointed out.  Two years of med school wasn’t much compared to the Ph.Ds the rest of her coworkers at ALIE Systems, Inc. had, but as it turned out, researchers were supremely uninterested in each other’s personal lives so long as you got your work done.  And with Raven’s help, Clarke was able to fake a working knowledge of nerve pathways well enough that so far, no one seemed to suspect that she was a med school drop-out-turned-FBI-agent.  Bellamy’s assignment in their in-house legal department was significantly more complicated (lawyers were a gossipy bunch), but he had at least attended law school all the way through.

Besides, as undercover assignments went, a biotech firm with possible nefarious intentions was pretty cushy compared to their last gig, which involved a biker gang, an international arms smuggling ring, and Clarke being referred to as Bellamy’s Old Lady.  Compared to that, this one was a piece of cake.  And at least in this assignment they had an entire five bedroom mansion to share instead of a one bedroom apartment above an autoparts store that smelled like motor oil.

In the shower, Clarke ran through what she had to turn over to Kane so far.  ALIE Systems was definitely not all that they claimed to be, that much was clear.  They were up to something, and whatever it was, it wasn’t good.  There was a strange cult of personality swirling around the never-seen founder, but the real power and corruption in the company lay with Cage Wallace, the CFO, and Nia Glazer, the head of R&D.  But even still, all she really had was a vague feeling that something was off and judges didn't tend to hand down arrest warrants based on a hunch.

Clarke ate breakfast sitting at the kitchen island next to Bellamy, their “wedding” photo smiling down on them from the wall.  That day had been a weird one, posing for three years worth of pictures (a selfie at a football game, wedding photos, and an entire fake Christmas with Bellamy and her mother) while pretending to be in love with her partner.  It wasn’t that she didn’t love him— she might have hated him when they were first paired together, but by this point he was essentially her other half and she couldn’t imagine going on an assignment without him— but there’s a difference between “you’re my favorite person” and “we’re in love.”

Or at least Clarke assumed there should be.  Which made how not-weird that day had been supremely weird.

Clarke spent the morning in the ALIE System’s main lab in front of a monitor, running simulations on the newest pain relief software and noting the adverse reactions the computer spit out.  She ducked out at lunch time for her usual run around the grounds and met Kane in a ravine two miles from the main building.  He didn’t have much to report— and no chatter that indicated they had been noticed— aside from a storage facility Green had found during one of his deep dives into ALIE System’s records.  “Might be nothing, might be something.  Think you can check it out tonight?”

Clarke glanced at her watch.  “Sure.  We’ll head out after dark.”

Kane shook his head and then they both ducked down at a rustle in the bushes.  It turned out to be nothing more than a chattering squirrel, and they stood back up in unison.  “You’ll have to go solo.  Green also found some signs that point to hidden files on a shadow server, but you have to be on-site to access them.”  Kane handed over a tiny jump drive that Clarke tucked into her sports bra.  “That’s got a program that will mask his keystrokes, but Blake will need to do it tonight.  Green says their security protocols change every 48 hours, so this is only good until tomorrow.”

“What’s he looking for?”

“Records of deals with Russia.  We think whatever Wallace and Glazer are planning, Russia is the first place they’ll test it.”

“Got it.  Oh, and Bellamy wants you to dig up his law school notes on contracts.  He thinks Roan’s onto him.”

“On it.  And tell him to watch out— there’s something off about that guy.”

“Off how?”

“He’s perfect for that job.  Too perfect, actually.”

“His mom is the head of R&D, you know.  Nepotism isn’t just limited to DC,” Clarke pointed out.

“That’s the problem.  His mother is the head of R&D, so he doesn’t  _ need _ to be perfect to get a job here.  Hell, he doesn’t even need to have gone to law school and he could still be head of Legal.  But instead he has a resume that’s pretty much exactly tailored to that position.”

“Think he’s undercover?”

“It sure looks like he is, but we have arrangements with all state-level agencies.  We’d know if he was one of theirs, and he’s definitely not one of ours.  So keep your eye on him, okay?”

“Got it,” Clarke said.  “Anything else?”

“Your mom says be safe.  And Octavia’s latest OB appointment went just fine, although Lincoln appears to be a nervous wreck.”

“Thanks,” Clarke said, and with a professional nod Kane melted back into the underbrush.

Clarke rinsed off in the company locker room and then used the last part of her lunch break to make her way up to Bellamy’s office.  “My husband here?” she asked Harper.

Harper tipped her head towards his door.  “Haven’t seen him leave,” she said with a smile.

He had, as usual, worked through lunch.  “Hey handsome,” Clarke said for Harper’s benefit, and then shut the door behind her.

Bellamy looked up from his desk with questioning eyes.  Clarke laid the jump drive on his desk and bent down to give him a peck on the cheek.  The windows to his office were frosted, but part of being undercover was  _ always _ being in character.  It was why they shared a bed.  If someone came over and noticed they kept separate bedrooms, that was a thread that could be picked at until the whole thing unraveled.  “Everything with Octavia is going fine.  And this will give you access to the shadow server just for tonight,” she murmured.  “Kane wants you to look for Russian fingerprints.  Oh, and he shares your suspicions about Roan.”

Bellamy nodded and looked up at her.  “And you?” he whispered.

“Storage facility outside of town.  Simple recon, nothing more.”

“See you tonight, then,” he said with a gentle smile.

Clarke let him kiss her cheek goodbye and then took the elevator back down to her lab.  Raven had sent her a list of things to look for while she finished her run and Clarke spent the rest of the afternoon searching for the serotonin spikes Raven had suggested.  She found a few examples, but nothing quite like what Raven had described.  Then it was a quick dinner in their far-too-large house before Clarke pulled on a black hoodie and hopped into the FBI-supplied Range Rover.

Roan was walking his dog— an absurdly tiny terrier— as she backed out of the driveway.  “Where you headed, neighbor?” he asked, friendly enough.

“Bellamy’s working late so I thought I’d go meet a college friend for drinks.  She’s in San Francisco for work,” Clarke said through her lowered window.

“Kind of dressed down for that,” Roan noted.  He was always doing that; picking out tiny hiccups in their stories or pressing for just too many details.  Kane was right— there was something going on with him, and she needed to be careful.

“We’re just meeting in her hotel room.  She hates crowds,” Clarke lied easily, and with a wave that was more than a little sarcastic on her part, she drove off.

Raven hacked into her satellite radio system before she’d gone three blocks.  “That dude is hot but bad news,” her familiar voice crackled over the radio.

Clarke chuckled.  “He’s definitely both of those things,” she admitted.  “What’d you find in what I sent you tonight?”

“A whole lotta nothing, which is actually a whole lotta something,” Raven said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that whatever they’re testing, it’s not working.  Or it’s working, but not in the way they’re saying.  It’s stopping pain from being registered, but not from existing.”

“You’re gonna need to explain why that’s bad.”

“They’re masking the symptoms, but only that.  Basically, the pain will break through eventually, but they seem to know that and don’t care.”

“So what’s the endgame?”

“Honestly, I think it’s deeper than we thought.  I’m wondering if...well, this is gonna sound insane.  But I think it’s about mind control.”

“Mind control? Like, brainwashing?”

“Brainwashing, but on a biological level.  I think they stumbled into something with the pain, and believe me, people would pay a bundle for a neural chip that turns off pain receptors.  It’d be like opiates without the risks, you know?  But if it was just that, they’d be focused on FDA testing already.  I think they figured something else out too, something with internal neural pathways, and...whatever it is, it isn’t good.”

“What should I be looking for?”

“At this storage facility?  No clue.  Could just be spare parts, could be a warehouse of bodies.”

“Awesome.  Well, I see it up ahead so I have to go dark.  I’ll let you know what I find.”

Clarke killed her headlights and shut off the engine.  The storage facility was just a spot of light in the distance but she couldn’t risk approaching by car and being spotted.  She’d have to hoof it, so she checked her holster, grabbed her emergency beacon and her flashlight, and started walking.

It was farther away than she’d thought, and significantly larger than it seemed when she parked her car.  She had to army crawl the last hundred yards to keep out of sight of the spotlights that were flooding the surrounding land with a searing white light.  It took her eyes a few seconds to adjust and then she saw him— one security guard, walking a lazy perimeter.  Behind she could see the door to the facility with an electronic lock below the handle.

This was weird.  The size of the facility indicated it was either storing one very large thing or hundreds and hundreds of small things.  And the off-books nature implied it was something that ALIE Systems didn’t want tied to their main mission, but the lack of security was strange.  One man and an easily hacked lock would keep out random meth heads looking for something to steal, but for someone like Clarke it might as well have had the door open.  But then why bother keeping it off books if there was nothing inside to protect?  She waited until the guard had walked around to the opposite side of the building and drew down her balaclava to cover her face.  She darted straight to the door and pulled out the device Raven had built her for just this scenario.  In seconds the lock flashed green and Clarke let herself inside.

And found herself standing in...an office.

A windowless, empty office, with cubicles as far as the eye could see.  It looked like a call center of some kind— each cubicle had a chair and a computer monitor and nothing else— which definitely didn’t fit with ALIE System’s current status as the hot new biotech company.  Clarke snapped a few photos, for whatever good that would do, and was about to go when she noticed a door off to her left.  It had the same electronic lock as outside, but no wires or cameras or anything that would indicate it was alarmed.

Clarke unlocked the door and stepped into the next room.  This looked more like what she expected; several rows of high metal shelves filled with electronic devices.  Clarke moved closer and inspected one without touching it.  It looked like a mini quadcopter with a narrow barrel protruding from the side.

_ Drones?  What the hell do drones have to do with anything?  _ she wondered, but before she got any farther, the door behind her opened.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” the security guard from outside said.  His face was oddly blank— no sign of suspicion, or stress, or...anything, really.

Clarke decided to try bluffing.  “Wallace sent me here on a security check,” she began, but the guard drew his weapon.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said again, and the trigger clicked back.

Clarke ducked just in time and the bullet exploded into the wall behind her.  She dove into a roll and knocked his legs out from underneath him, but the guard's face stayed blank when his shoulder drove into the cement floor.  “You’re not supposed to be here,” he repeated, even after she kicked him in the stomach and sent his gun skittering away.

She reached for her holster but he moved faster than his bulk should have allowed.  He had her pinned, his knees pressing into her chest and his hands around her neck in seconds.  “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said, like he had forgotten all other words in the English language.

Clarke threw her weight into a punch as best she could, but he swatted her arm away.  He trapped that arm with his leg and went back to trying to strangle her, leaving her no other option.  Clarke squirmed until her left hand curled around her handgun, and then with another wiggle she brought it between her chest and his stomach.

The security guard didn’t even seem to notice the barrel pressed to his belly.  His face didn’t change when she pulled the trigger either, the explosion popping her eardrums and leaving her trapped under his body even as air rushed back into her lungs when his fingers loosened abruptly.

Panic replaced adrenaline and Clarke heaved him off of her.  She’d never killed anyone before but she couldn’t let that thought sink in.  She pulled out her emergency beacon and keyed in the code— 5813,  _ agent safe but disposal needed _ — and sprinted out of the facility as fast as she could.

“Clarke?” Raven’s voice asked the second she turned the engine over.  “We just got your beacon.  What the fuck happened?”

“I don’t know,” Clarke said, blindly hitting the gas.  There wasn’t much between the facility and Arkadia, fortunately, and the road sped by.  “There was a security guard there, and I tried— I tried to talk my way out of it, but he wasn’t— he wasn’t normal.”

“Normal?”

“He just kept saying ‘you shouldn’t be here,’ but it wasn’t like he knew what he was saying.  It was like he was programmed or something.  He didn’t even seem to realize I’d shot him.”

“Oh, fuck.  Kane’s got a team on the way to clean things up.  Are you okay?  What was he guarding?”

“I'm fine, and it was drones.  I think it’s a facility to pilot drones, but...what the hell do drones have to do with a neural pain implant?”

“Fuck if I know.  Kane already alerted Bellamy, and he’s—”

“-- he can’t come home yet, he only has tonight to search the files,” Clarke protested.

“He already finished.  He’ll be waiting for you,” Raven said soothingly as Clarke turned into the winding, suburban streets of Arkadia.  She had to slow down or else get a ticket for speeding while covered in blood.

Oh god, she was covered in  _ blood. _

 

**

 

Just like Raven said, Bellamy was waiting for her the moment she walked through the garage door into the kitchen.  “Thank god you’re okay,” he said, while she threw the blood-soaked hoodie down.   He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his lips to the top of her head.  “You’re okay, you’re okay,” he whispered, and Clarke let herself relax into him.

“Did you find anything?” she asked, her voice muffled by his chest.

“Looks like there’s a deal with Russia, but it’s hard to figure out what for,” he said, his hands moving a little as he tightened his grip on her.  “Are you going to be okay?”

Clarke realized that if she didn’t move soon, she never would have the strength to let go.  “I will be,” she said firmly and stepped back.  “But I need to shower.”

Bellamy curved his hand around her jaw, his thumb sweeping along her cheek.  “Okay,” he said gently.  “I’ll get rid of your clothes.  Just toss them out of the bathroom.”

Clarke did just that, and then stood in the shower and scrubbed her skin until it felt raw.  She was still shaky, and every time she closed her eyes the security guard’s face flashed in front of them, but she wasn’t falling apart.  It was kill or be killed, and she did what she had to do.  If anything, this was proof that whatever ALIE was up to, it was even worse than they suspected.

She redressed in the UVA t-shirt and sweatpants she normally wore to bed (they had supposedly met there, during Bellamy’s third year of law school and her senior year of undergrad) and went back into their bedroom.

Bellamy was sitting at the edge of the bed.  “I torched your clothes.  The basement is going to smell like a firepit for a few days, but we can take the trash can outside and bury the ashes tomorrow,” he said.  He was resting his elbows on his knees and gave her a searching look.  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I am,” Clarke said.  “I just need to go to sleep.”  He gave her another long look and then nodded.  

Together they peeled back the covers and climbed under.  Part of why the Bureau sprang for a king sized bed was to make it as much like sleeping separately as possible, and normally, Clarke appreciated it.  She needed the distance to remind herself that her feelings for Bellamy were not returned.  But that night, every time she closed her eyes she remembered the guard’s horribly blank face and sleep just wouldn’t come.  Judging by the silence on his side of the bed, Bellamy wasn’t sleeping either.

Around 1am, Clarke rolled over to look at him.  “Can...can I?” she asked in a wobbly voice.

“Of course,” he said, and opened his arms.  Clarke curled up, her head on his shoulder, and focused on the steady thump of his heart and the soft way his fingers ran through her hair.  Slowly, the guard’s face started drifting farther and farther away and eventually, she slept.

 

**

 

Protocol after an incident like the one involving the guard dictated five days of complete radio silence.  Five days of feeling anxious, five days of wearing scarves and thick foundation to hide the handprint bruises around her neck, five days of watching Cage and Nia have hushed arguments in the hallways that ended whenever anyone approached.  Five nights of Clarke sleeping in Bellamy’s arms, and five mornings of them pretending like that wasn’t out of the ordinary.  And five mornings of waking up in Bellamy's arms and reminding herself that he was just being a good partner and nothing more.

On the sixth day, Bellamy came back from his run to tell her that Kane had left the signal on the running path.  She was meeting with Kane tonight, after the benefit, and Bellamy would have his debrief the following evening.  

“What’s this thing for, anyway?” Bellamy yelled from the bedroom.

“Owls, I think.  Yeah— endangered owls,” she called back.  She had been at war with a curling iron for the better part of a half hour and decided to concede the battle.  She unplugged it, made one last swipe with her mascara wand, and joined him in the bedroom.  “You clean up nice,” she teased to cover the way her throat went a little dry at the sight of Bellamy in a tux.

His eyes darkened for just a moment.  “You do too,” he said with a half-smile.  “But I still can’t believe we have to go to this thing.”

“We’re supposed to be enthusiastic members of the community.  And enthusiastic members of the community accept invitations to fundraisers from other members of the community,” Clarke deadpanned in her best imitation of Kane.

Bellamy snorted.  “Then let’s go— the sooner we get there, the sooner we can leave.”

Clarke was more comfortable with these sorts of events thanks to her childhood, but an hour in she was glancing at the clock, wondering if they’d put in enough of an appearance.  Bellamy was doing his best, carrying on a faux-friendly conversation with Roan who was, as ever, entirely too interested in the two of them.  “So when did you know?” Roan asked.

Bellamy wrapped his arm around Clarke’s waist.  “Know what?” he asked.

Roan cocked his head to the side and Clarke didn’t like the sly gleam in his eyes.  “When did you know she was the one?”

“That’s easy,” Bellamy said with a smile.  “I’d known her about a year and I found her at a vending machine that had eaten her money.  She was just— whaling on it. Yelling, shouting, punching it...it was hilarious, and I just— I knew.”

Roan laughed, but Clarke swallowed back her surprise.  Bellamy was just doing what they learned at the Academy— the closer to the truth you stick, the easier it is to remember.  She knew the event he was referring to, because she remembered it vividly.  They’d been on the trail of a drug trafficking ring, blessedly not undercover, around a year after they’d somehow shifted from bickering and hating each other to bickering and being best friends.  She was sick of being on the road, sick of eating shitty food from vending machines and gas stations, sick of spending hours in the car with Bellamy watching the entrance to a third floor walkup that possibly doubled as a drug den.  She’d lost it, and Bellamy had to pull her away from the hotel vending machine, laughing the entire time.

“Sorry, my phone is ringing and I think it might be my mother,” Clarke said and reached into her clutch as she ducked away.  Her heart was pounding and her neck felt like it was flushing.  They’d rehearsed so many stories about their fake life before this assignment; she could have told Roan about their first date, their first fight, their first anniversary, and the restaurant he’d taken her to propose (a hole in the wall just off UVA’s campus).  She knew Bellamy was just covering by picking a random memory because "when did you know you loved each other" wasn't one they'd practiced, but somehow, it hurt.  

It wasn't real, but she wanted it to be.

Bellamy materialized at her side in the entryway with their coats.  “I told Roan your mom’s been sick and we needed to go,” he said quietly, and she let him help her into her coat.  He kept his hand on her lower back as they left, because nothing— not even his partner having a totally unwarranted meltdown— could get him to break character.  

She kept wanting to apologize on the drive home, but the words just wouldn’t come out.  Bellamy tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel and she knew he was trying to think of a way to apologize too, but she didn’t want him to because he’d done nothing wrong.

Kane flashed his headlights up ahead as they neared their driveway, and Bellamy slowed down to let her out without a word.  Clarke checked to make sure the coast was clear before slipping into Kane’s car and sinking down in the passenger seat.

“What’d you find?” she asked in as normal of a voice as she could manage.

“This,” he said, and handed her a tiny microchip in a plastic evidence bag.

“It looks like the new prototype, but—”

“--but with some alterations,” Kane finished.  “Reyes is still running tests, but it seems like her suspicions were right.  It’s a neural block-and-override, she says.”

“So brainwashing?”

“Brainwashing,” Kane confirmed.  “We pulled that out of the guard from the facility.”  Clarke’s heart twisted, because that meant she’d killed a man who wasn’t in control of himself.  “You did what you had to do,” he added.  “No one blames you.”

Clarke curled her fist around the chip.  “So what’s next?”

“We keep watching.  As far as Reyes can tell it still has to be surgically implemented, so now we’re working on the assumption that the facility you found is Cage jumping the gun.  It’s clear he wants to weaponize this, but it looks like they’re still a ways away from that.  So stay in the holding pattern, and we’ll contact you if anything changes.”

“Got it,” Clarke acknowledged, and handed the chip back.  “Anything else?”

“Yeah.  Your mother is worried about you and wants me to pull you from this mission.”

“Then thank god she’s a senator and not the head of the FBI.”

“I’m worried about you too.  How are you holding up?”

“I’m fine.  Really, I am.”

“And Blake?”

“He’ll kill us all if he misses his nephew’s birth, but other than that, he’s fine.”

A smile flickered across Kane's face.  “You take care of yourself, okay?”

“Roger that,” Clarke said and when Kane gave her the all clear, she stepped out and hurried back into the house.

Bellamy had already changed into another old UVA shirt and boxers and was sitting up on his side of the bed, glasses perched on his nose as he skimmed through his ipad.  Clarke filled him in on Kane's intel as she took out her earrings and dropped her jewelry, including her fake wedding ring, into the dish on her dresser.

Bellamy set his ipad aside when she perched on the edge of the bed near his feet.  “About what Roan asked,” he started, but she shook her head.

“Do you remember the day on that stakeout when we had those awful sandwiches?  You know, the ones that tasted like cardboard?” she asked.  Bellamy nodded and Clarke balled up her now-shaking hands.  She had realized on the drive back she couldn’t stay silent anymore, no matter what.  It was risky and might ruin everything, but she just couldn't take it anymore.  “I spent maybe twenty minutes digging through that gas station cooler to find one without mayo for you.”

“I would have eaten one with mayo,” Bellamy interrupted.

“Let me finish,” Clarke mock-admonished.  “I know you would have eaten one with mayo, but I know you hate it.  And I didn’t want you to have to.  So I kept looking until I found one.”

“Still tasted like cardboard,” he said with a crooked smile.

“I know.  But that’s—” she took a deep breath because after this, there was no going back.  “That’s when I knew.”  

She saw the moment the realization landed.  His eyes grew wide and it was like he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.

And then he smiled, and it was the most beautiful thing Clarke had ever seen.  She leaned forward and so did he, and their lips met, slightly off-center.  She laughed and cupped his face in her hands to better align their mouths and when his tongue found hers she realized how long they’d wasted being in love with each other and not saying anything, because the gas station sandwiches had happened a full two days before the vending machine incident, and both of those were well over a year ago.   Clarke leaned back and drew Bellamy with her, his lips chasing down her throat while his hands worked at her zipper.  

Their arms got tangled more than once in their haste to undress each other.  But with every touch, it felt more and more right.  Clarke couldn’t believe she’d denied it for this long, couldn’t believe she’d spent the last year telling herself that Bellamy would never feel the same way about her.  She scraped her teeth along his jaw and his thumb teased her now-bared nipple until it was aching.  

Everything narrowed to a pinpoint.  Every breath he took, every centimeter of skin her lips tasted, was all that existed in the world.  She couldn’t stop smiling and neither could he, and by the time he pushed inside of her she was breathless with joy.  It was perfect—  _ he _ was perfect— and with every thrust she felt closer to him in a way she’d never let herself imagine.

“I’ve wanted that for so long,” Bellamy murmured when they had both fallen apart in each other’s arms, gasping and clutching desperately as they shook and trembled.

Clarke smoothed his hair back from his forehead, his skin sticky with sweat just like hers.  “Me too,” she said, and arched her neck up to kiss him again, just because she could.

 

**

 

“Don’t you normally go for a run on Sunday mornings?” Clarke asked when Bellamy’s lips nuzzled her awake.

“Normally, yes.  But if you think I’m getting out of bed for anything less than a threat to our national security, you’re crazy,” he said, and drew her earlobe between his teeth.

Clarke arched into a stretch and rolled over, but a shrill beeping interrupted what was clearly about to be an excellent morning.  Bellamy swore and Clarke reached for her Bureau-issued emergency phone.  “Kane says there’s activity on the server, and he thinks Nia and Cage might be deleting groaned,” she read.  “We’re supposed to go up and bring them in if we can.  So it looks like it _is_ a threat to our national security.”

Bellamy was already out of bed and pulling on a pair of jeans.  “Good.  Let’s get these assholes so we can go home and get back to making out.”

Clarke snagged her underwear from the floor and shimmied it on.  “I like how you think,” she said, and they suited up like a well-oiled machine.  Bellamy handed her her sidearm and she tossed him a black sweatshirt and then they hopped into the Range Rover and Bellamy tore out of the subdivision for ALIE’s campus.

They had high enough security clearance that the guard at the parking lot waved them in, and their keycards still worked which meant if Nia and Cage were spooked, they didn’t know who was after them.  Most of the lights were off and the hallways silent and deserted.  

Bellamy glanced down at the readout Raven had sent to his phone.  “The activity is on Nia’s computer,” he whispered, and Clarke unsnapped her holster and nodded.  Together, they crept down the hallway towards Nia’s office.  The door was ajar and they could hear keys clicking away.  She looked at Bellamy and waited for his signal before kicking the door open.

“Freeze!  FBI,” they shouted in unison, and Roan looked up from his mother’s chair.  Clarke’s heart sank a little because he was annoying and a little strange, but she’d hoped he wasn’t involved in this.

“Right on time,” Roan said, appearing supremely unconcerned about facing down two guns and the possibility of federal charges.  

“Hands behind your head,” Bellamy ordered, and Roan complied with an eyeroll.  

“I’m not deleting anything,” he explained.  “I’m copying it.”

“Uh huh,” Bellamy said, slipping a zip tie around Roan’s wrist.  “And where’s your mother?”

“Probably on her way to try and stop me from writing this story and to conveniently walk into you guys, getting her ass arrested,” Roan said.

Clarke checked the rest of the office, but it was clear.  “You’re...writing a story?”

“I’m a journalist,” Roan said with exasperation.

“And your mother...doesn’t know that?” Bellamy asked, shooting Clarke a helpless look.  They hadn’t bargained on anyone not involved being able to access the shadow server, and now they’d gone and blown their cover for a fucking  _ journalist _ .  Technically it was Kane’s call, but they were both so eager to be done with the charade they hadn’t stopped to think about what would happen if they were wrong.

Roan sighed.  “Of course she knows that.  She just thinks I gave it up to join the family business.  But really, I came to figure out what the hell she’s doing with those chips.  And now that I know...well, I texted her this morning to let her know her world was about to go down in flames.  You're welcome, by the way.”

Voices in the hallway caught their attention, and Bellamy slapped his palm over Roan’s mouth.  Roan rolled his eyes again but let them shove him down behind the desk.  “I’m telling you, if he says he knows, he  _ knows _ ,” Nia hissed.

“He’s been known to exaggerate,” Cage countered, and Clarke looked at Bellamy over Roan’s head.  They waited for Cage and Nia to walk into her office before springing up, guns drawn once again.

“Freeze!  FBI!” they shouted for the second time that morning.

 

**

 

Clarke puttered around the kitchen, searching for something to do.  She had already emptied the dishwasher straightened the piles of books in the living room and now she was just pacing aimlessly.

She hadn’t seen Bellamy since the parking lot of ALIE Systems.  Kane had shown up with several squad cars to cart away Nia and Cage (and Roan, although he was released shortly thereafter) and a dedicated car for Bellamy.  “Griffin’s handling the paperwork on this one,” Kane announced.  “There’s a plane waiting for you— you’re about to be an uncle.”

Bellamy’s face lit up, and then fell for a split second when he looked at Clarke.  “Go,” she said.  “We’ll catch up later.”   _ We don’t need to talk about this now _ , she tried to say with her eyes, and it seemed to have worked because his smile brightened again.

But that was 36 hours ago, and now Clarke was wandering around Bellamy’s apartment and wondering if she was crossing a line.  He had given her the key to bring in his mail and water his plants six months ago, when he went to visit Octavia for a week.  She’d used it hundreds of times since then, because it was easier to just let herself in than wait for him to put his book down and come to the door.  She thought about leaving, but then there was a key in the door and it was too late to run home and pretend she’d never done this.

Her doubts evaporated at the sight of his face.  “How’s your nephew?” she asked.

Bellamy caught her in his arms and buried his nose at the crook of her neck.  “Perfect.  But it’s even better to come home to you.”

“This wasn’t— too much?”

“Never,” he said, his lips brushing against her skin.  Clarke tipped her head down and he rose to meet her lips in a soft, lazy kiss.  It was gentle and sweet and her heart swelled almost painfully, her fingers curling into his hair and his hands tightening around her waist.  She had more to tell him about the case— and about the next one Kane had assigned— but that could wait.  

Right now, they had to make up for lost time.

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday to my fandom fairy godmother, the impeccable swishywillow.


End file.
